Understanding Environmental Worldview of Famagusta Residents and Its Determinants through Survey Research

Abstract

Environmental attitude studies have been a key focus within the environmental research field, as the significance of ecological citizenship for the sustainable development discourse has been highly recognized in recent years. In this context, the influence of demographic variables on environmental attitude is an emerging issue that is widely investigated in the west. In this respect, this paper seeks to understand the impact of demographic variables on the environmental worldview of Famagusta residents in order to make a scientific contribution to the possible construction of relevant strategies. A random sample of 165 residents within the territory of Famagusta Municipality was chosen for the survey. The survey tapped the relationship between environmental (ecocentric and anthropocentric) attitudes and selected demographic variables (age, gender, education and household income) and the survey results were evaluated with the help of SPSS (statistical package for social sciences) analyses. The findings reveal that younger respondents, women and the highly educated do not achieve higher scores of environmental attitudes and household income has a statistically significant nonlinear effect.